


God Only Knows

by englishghosts



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 03:06:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/580612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/englishghosts/pseuds/englishghosts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's best friend is dead. He is fine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God Only Knows

**Author's Note:**

> Set after Reichenbach Falls, so spoilers for the end of Season 2. In my head this is John/Sherlock, but it's just friendship if you want to. Inspired by the song "God Only Knows", by The Beach Boys, which always sounded absolutely depressing to me despite the happy tune.

_If you should ever leave me_  
 _Though life would still go on believe me_  
 _The world could show nothing to me  
_ _So what good would living do me_

_God only knows what I'd be without you_

 

John is fine. He eats (not much). He sleeps (not well). It took him a month, but now he's living in 221B, Baker Street again, and keeps it exactly the same as it was _before_. He diagnoses colds and allergies and is polite to Sarah, and makes small talk to her new boyfriend when he picks her up after work. He reads The Times in the morning and watches crap telly when he comes home from work. He asks Mrs. Hudson about her scratch-cards when he sees her, and at least once a week she invites him for dinner. Sometimes he goes out for drinks with Mike. Sometimes with Greg, though these always end up with both actively _not_ reminiscing.

His leg went back to hurting, so he's taken the dusty cane back from its place on top of the wardrobe. Sometimes it takes him a full ten minutes to climb the stairs to his room, but he refuses to use the room downstairs. This gives Ella much to talk about. He doesn’t tell her that the nightmares have started again, only now they are of long limbs flailing through the cold London air (graceless for the first time, and yet, not) and blood adorning a pale face (so much blood to irrigate that wonderful brain). He doesn’t tell her that he can still feel the stones beneath his face, and the perfume of the woman who held him back, and the pulse that wasn’t there.

He doesn’t date anymore. He tried once or twice, but it always comes back to the same problem: no girl wants to spend her life always being second place.

Sometimes he talks to the skull, sometimes to the tombstone. Sometimes he opens a cabinet and finds lost remains of an old experiment and sometimes there are notes for a case inside one of his medical journals, and his heart races, and for a second it’s like trying to breathe through lead.

John is fine. If he keeps repeating it long enough, he might make himself believe it.


End file.
